


Demons, Ovechkin and other Superhuman Forces

by stumblebee



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Angst, Getting Together, M/M, demon deals or a notable lack of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stumblebee/pseuds/stumblebee
Summary: Sometimes Nicky wonders, usually in moments like these, if there is something to it, if you need Canadians and the horrible things they chose to do to themselves as children to win it all. Maybe Don Cherry is right, at the end of the day, maybe you just can’t win without demonic assistance. Without sacrifice, as that insufferable spray tanned dinosaur always puts it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oops_ohdear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oops_ohdear/gifts).



> hi oops_ohdear! this got sadder and more like ~intense than I was aiming for, but I hope you enjoy, I promise Nicky and Ovi get a happy ending.
> 
>  
> 
> Edited May 21 2017: mostly formatting and a couple typos and flow issues

Sometimes Nicky wonders, usually in moments like these, if there is something to it, if you need Canadians and the horrible things they chose to do to themselves as children to win it all. Maybe Don Cherry is right, maybe at the end of the day you just can’t win without demonic assistance. Without sacrifice, as that insufferable spray tanned dinosaur always puts it.

When Nicky was a kid playing hockey in Gävle, when he was starting to get old enough and good enough that he was getting near the national teams, the older boys would tell scary stories about the big bad soulless Canadians. About how they sold their babies to demons for hockey, about how they made blood sacrifices in the locker room, about how they didn’t even feel pain.

Nicky had frowned, once, listening to a sordid and blood soaked description of how exactly Wayne Gretzkys' father had attracted a demon powerful enough to score nearly 900 NHL goals, and the boy telling the story had scoffed right back.

“You think I’m lying, Backstrom? Just wait, you’ll see, they’re fucking animals, and-” 

And when he makes the national team, he does see. It’s not all of them but it’s enough of them to notice, enough that it makes a difference that feels significant, if not insurmountable. Big toothless boys with demon touched eyes and hits that feel impossibly hard and hands that move impossibly fast. Playing against them, the air feels oily, the ice almost sludgy. The puck rolls their way like its magnetized. Sweden loses, against Canada. Almost always. 

But this isn’t Sweden. This is Washington, this is the NHL, this is nine years and no conference finals, this is two presidents trophies, this is regular season dominance and falling short where it matters most. This is, statistically, the prime of his career, spent watching Toews and Dustin Brown and Sidney fucking Crosby, eyes glittering black, trade the cup back and forth. Watching Crosby come back from each injury simultaneously sharper and duller. Almost a decade of thinkpieces about why they just can’t do it, why they just can’t win, how they have the talent and lack Something Else. This is Nickys' career, this is his lifes work, and this is being eliminated in the second round by Sidney fucking Crosby and his fucking Penguins. This is Nicky sitting on his couch by himself drinking sadness beer in June instead of playing.

Someone is pounding on his door. Like, really pounding, the sound of fists making contact with solid wood. Nicky really wants to ignore it, but then Alex is shouting, because of course he is. 

“Let me in, Backy, I want to crash your misery nest!” 

So Nicky does let him in, and Alex strolls in like he owns the place, in a mangy and dog-haired sweatsuit and sagging gray beanie. He looks like he shaved with a lawnmower. 

“You look homeless,” Nicky says, and Alex pauses in his appraisal of Nickys admittedly depressing living room to take a bow. 

“So!” Alex says, and picks up the remote, turning off the TV, where a very tired looking Joe Thorton is speaking to the media, without looking at it, “No more of that.”

Nicky feels as tired as Thorton looks, all of a sudden. Thorton is old. Maybe even whatever nasty thing he gave bits of his soul as a teenager can’t keep his body together any more. He lets himself collapse back on his couch, brings his beer back to his lips. 

“What do you want, Alex?” he says, and Alex doesn’t say anything, just sits beside him on the couch, the sprawl of his legs knocking their knees together. He gestures for a beer and Nicky hands him one. They’re warm, and Alex sighs like Nicky is killing him. 

“You’re a shitty host, Nicklas.” 

“You weren’t invited, Alexander,” Nicky says, sinking deeper back into his couch, pressing his leg more firmly against Ovi’s. 

They sit in silence for a bit. What is there to say, really. Nicky lets himself enjoy the warmth and weight of Alex’s thigh; it feels like the first human contact he’s had since they lost. It’s not, of course, but it is present in a way that feels like a revelation. Divorced from hockey, even if the very idea of Alex Ovechkin could never be. 

Nicky turns the TV back on, eventually. It’s not Thorton anymore, its Crosby. His eyes look like pebbles, his face is very still, when he’s not talking. Something about the angle he holds his head at would be bone deep unsettling, if Nicky weren’t used to it. The things you can get used to; Nicky almost wants to laugh. Maybe he is a bit drunk. He gestures at the screen with his bottle. 

“Remember when Crosby still looked like a person?”

Alex doesn’t seem to find it funny. “Yep,” he says, and Nicky wishes he could pull the words out of the air and back into his mouth. 

Alex glances at him. “Don’t look like that, Nicky, god. Just. Makes me sad, sometimes, you know? I feel like we were kids together and now he is - “ he waves his free hand, vaguely, “that.”

“A two time Stanley Cup champion,” Nicky says, half a joke and winces as soon as he hears what it sounds like. As soon as Alex stiffens, sits up and abruptly pulls his leg away. It’s cold, without his body beside Nickys. Nicky tries to fix it. 

“I don’t - I don’t wish that was me. I don’t want what they’ve done, I just. You wonder sometimes, right? This time of year. If it’s worth it.”

“It’s not,” says Alex, vehement, low.

“Sure," Nicky says, every black feeling of the past two months resurfacing, "The team is so good, and it’s never enough. And-” we're running out of time, he doesn't say. You're running out of time, he doesn't say. It was never Nicky vs Sid, after all. 

Alex is staring at him like he’s grown a third head, and Nicky can feel his cheeks colouring, a muddle of confusion and anger. 

“Don’t look at me like that. This is your story, all those smug fuckers saying that you don’t know anything about sacrifice or devotion,” Nicky spits the words like they taste bad, “Like you don’t work hard. Like you didn’t leave your home, your family for it. You can’t tell me it doesn’t get to you, I know it does, I’ve seen it get to you. They always win.” Nicky swallows, suddenly despondant, “The way they are, it’s fucked up, it’s wrong, but it always works. They always win.” 

Alex is watching him with rapt attention. Nickys not sure he can bear it. He touches under Nickys chin, lifts it with the lightest pressure. Nicky can feel Alex’s pulse where his fingertips are against his skin. He swallows, suddenly out of words. 

Alex kisses him. It’s soft and chaste, just the dry press of his lips, and Nicky lets him. Nickys heart was already pounding, now it’s going to shake clear out of his chest. 

“What was that for,” Nicky asks, out of breath, when Alex pulls back, but not too far. Leaves his hand against the side of Nickys neck.

“Been thinking,” says Alex.

“Shocking,” says Nicky, trying to find his footing. 

“No, really,” says Alex, “Next year, we’re gonna win it all, I can feel it.” Alex says something like this most years. “We’re gonna win it all, without any of that demon bullshit. You know why, Nicky?” 

Nicky keeps watching his face, close like a goal hug but so very much not that, and Alex raises his eyebrows, so Nicky sighs, and plays along. “Why, Alex?” 

“Because we are magic, you and me.” Alexs fingers flex, against the side of his neck, not holding, just there. “So good on the ice together, score so many perfect fucking goals together. Also Holts will help, and the kids, but this team is you and me. And we don’t need any fucking demons to do it.” 

Nicky has nearly 15 years of anecdotal pro and international experience that suggests otherwise. But Alex isn’t done. He swallows, looks unsure, for a second. 

“And even if we don’t," Alex says, and this is not somewhere this conversation has ever gone, the times they've had it before, "Even if it turns out that you need to do horrible things to yourself to lead and win here. We still have something else, that fucking Crosby and Toews and all those guys don’t have. We’re still people, Nicky. Just people. So I’ve been thinking,” Alex swallows again, looks down at their hands. Carefully laces their fingers together. His palms are rough and dry. Warm. Nicky holds on tight. 

“We can’t have that cup? Fine. Who cares. Dusty old Canadian trophy for dusty old Canadians and their nasty rituals. We can have,” he almost looks embarrassed, and Nicky wants to know how that sentence ends. He clears his throat. “Love, Nicky. We can have love. We get to have lives when this is all over. Get to spend them with people. As people.” 

Nicky waits, but apparently that’s it. 

“You come over to my house, to what, propose?” Nicky is aiming for teasing, he’s missed it. He knows he sounds hoarse, suprised and vulnerable and he doesn’t care, because Alex does too, and because it’s Alex, who he has known since he was 18 and so, so scared, of this league, of his future. 

“I was just thinking, I was sad, I was angry, you know, all those things, every year the same, and I thought, it was dumb for me to get stuck on it, we have lots of practice in losing like this. We were so good this year, and it wasn’t enough, but. You and me? I think we could be enough. And Crosby’s got his trophies and rings and his name on that cup, but he doesn’t get to have this. He doesn’t get to feel this,” he says, and squeezes Nicky’s hand. 

Nicky feels off balance and at home, all at once. Utter familiarity with slightly shifted context, his brain racing to catch up and get ahead. And Alex is waiting for him to do it, Nicky knows he is, because Nicky knows Alex. And it makes sense, the more he thinks. Nonsensical to anyone else, but they aren't anyone else. They make sense. Alex makes sense. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. You get your Stanley-Cup-consolation-fuck-you-Crosby prize.” 

Alex grins, and shoves him, gently, unwilling to actually let go of the hold he’s got on the neck of Nicky’s shirt. “Don’t sell yourself short, Nicky.” 

Nicky is the one who leans in, for their second kiss.

 

There are demons, in this world. They play hockey against men with empty eyes and superstrength, but Alex Ovechkin is on Nickys team, in every sense of the word, and Nicky has the utmost faith in him.


End file.
